Lodesky Ann Roberds (1835-1922)
}} * Mississippi Saints 1846 Pioneer Company Biography Mississippi Saints 1846 Pioneer Company Numbered amoung the participants in the Mississippi Saints 1846 Pioneer Company, a early Mormon pioneer wagon train that left Mississippi in 1846 to join the Mormon exodus to Utah. This group Brigham Young's vanguard company and spent the winter of 1846/47 at Fort Pueblo where the were joined by soldiers of the sick detachment of the Mormon Battalion. They reached Salt Lake City in late summer of 1847. Marriage Lodesky Ann Roberds meet Prows in Salt Lake City, Utah. William Cook Prows (1827-1894) as an older man wanted to go on the Mormon Marching trail trail one last time before he got to old. The US Government was after him and he fled to Mexico, specifically to Colonial Juarez, Casa Grande, Chihuahua State, Mexico. William was to die in Mexico. Lodesky Ann, his wife, took a head stone into Mexico crossing down to Casa Grande to put it on his grave. Lodesky Ann came back to the United States to live with her daughter in Salina, Utah. Lodesky died in Salina several years later. She is buried in the Salina Cemetery. She had a very colorful life. At the time her father and mother were crossing the plains she was 10 years old. William Crosby led the John Roberds family from Mississippi, as far as Fort Pueblo, where they spent the winter. Most of the group continued on in the spring of 1847, under the direction of Amasa Lyman, who was sent from Brigham Young's vanguard company to collect them, arriving in July of 1847. The Howard Egan account indicates that at the time the company met up with Brigham Young's 1847 company, after wintering at Fort Pueblo, that there were 161 people in the company and there were "5 wagons, one cart, eleven horses, twenty-four oxen, twenty-two cows, three bulls and seven calves. The total number of animals in the camp are ninety six horses, fifty-one mules, ninety oxen, forty-three cows, nine calves, three bulls, sixteen chickens, sixteen dogs, seventy-nine wagons and one cart." They became one of the pioneers in the San Bernardino Valley, California area, later came to live in Southern Utah. Nevada Gold Discovery William Cook Prows became acquainted with the eldest daughter of the John Roberds family, Lodesky Ann Roberds, who was born 28 July 1835 in Monroe County, Mississippi. When the Roberds left for California in the spring of 1850, William Cook Prows (1827-1894) was in their company. It was led by Thomas Orr. On 14 April 1850, William Cook Prows and Lodeskey Ann Roberds were married at Mary's River, a branch of the Humboldt River, State of Nevada, by Benjamin Mathevis. To add to the excitement of their marriage, William Cook Prows was credited with being the first person to discover gold in Nevada. "On the 15th day of May, 1850, the party halted for a few hours at noon, beside a little creek flowing down from the range of hills which bounded the valley on the eat. The cattle were turned loose to graze among the sagebrush and the women of the party prepared a simple dinner of bacon and potatoes. William Cook Prows meanwhile picked up a tin milk pan and, going down to the edge of the creek, began washing the surface dirt. After a few minutes he returned and showed his companions a few glittering specks on the bottom of the pan. The specks were gold dust, worth intrinsically only a few cents, thrown carelessly aside a few moments later, but they were then transformed into precious and fruitful seed, for this pinch of dust was positive evidence of the existence of gold in the deserts of western Utah (now Nevada) and that starting point once given, the exploration and developement of the mineral resources of the land were assured." See Also * Lodesky Roberds * Roberds in Monroe County, Mississippi * Roberds in Sevier County, Utah * Roberds in Elko County, Nevada